More than 40% of sports fans worldwide abandoned concession lines in the past 12 months - without making a purchase - because of excessive waiting, according to a just-released Oracle Hospitality Sports and Entertainment research report The Fan Experience: Changing the Game with Food and Beverage, published in partnership with Turnkey Intelligence, an industry-leading market research provider.

The global study surveyed more than 3,500 sports fans in eight countries - Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States - and focused on uncovering their top priorities. Most importantly, the survey aids venue operators by identifying 'pain points' and solutions designed to trigger greater attendance and spark sales.

"Oracle is planning to boost investment in Brazil to accommodate growing demand from customers expanding their use of cloud computing.

The company is looking to double the capacity of its first local datacenter, built last year in the Sao Paulo countryside city of Campinas to cater for Brazilian cloud customers, the firm's CEO Mark Hurd told Brazilian newspaper Valor..."

Michael Hickins writes in Forbes, "In smaller organizations or departments within large organizations, when it comes to, for example, providing great customer service, size doesn't matter - but budget does. This is often a huge barrier for smaller and midsize organizations looking for the same technological advantages as their larger and financially more well-endowed competitors..."

Krishna writes, "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Server X6-2 Compute Node for the Private Cloud Appliance and PCA software release 2.2. IT organizations and providers can now deliver enhanced security and flexibility with full tenant isolation at both the server and network levels. PCA customers now have the flexibility to customize and assign servers and networks to different tenant groups based on business need.

Mark blogs, "The Internet of Things (IoT) presents new opportunities for applying advanced analytics. Sensors are everywhere collecting data - on airplanes, trains, and cars, in semiconductor production machinery and the Large Hadron Collider, and even in our homes. One such sensor is the home energy smart meter, which can report household energy consumption every 15 minutes. This data enables energy companies to not only model each customer's energy consumption patterns, but also to forecast individual usage. Across all customers, energy companies can compute aggregate demand, which enables more efficient deployment of personnel, redirection or purchase of energy, etc., often a few days or weeks out..."

Rob Preston writes in Forbes, "Looking to reduce the length and cost of the more than 300 clinical trials it conducts each year, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is turning to a cloud platform to manage and monitor every aspect of that process, from trial creation to data collection, cleansing, and submission.

The logistics of clinical trials, which are designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of new drugs or other treatments in test subjects, are highly complex. They can involve multiple phases; the screening of thousands of patients; the training of various personnel in tens or hundreds of countries, each with their own acceptable-care and safety practices; shipments of perishable goods to sites in those countries; coordination with various contract research organizations (CROs) and other partners; and the analysis of a variety of original and third-party data..."

John Soat writes in Forbes, "To such classic nightmare scenarios as having your liver devoured by an eagle or being turned into a giant beetle, technology has contributed its own unique twist: the tech support call. Almost every in-distress tech user has had a surreal experience involving number trees, canned music, and a maddeningly affectless voice repeating the phrase 'I understand.'

The New York Times published an article recently about the angst typical with many tech support and other customer service engagements - and companies' complicity in this sorry state of affairs. It's a pretty damning piece, but there are also lessons to be gleaned about how to improve customer service that all companies must take to heart..."

"Evolution as understood by Charles Darwin was supposed to happen very slowly and gradually. That's why he, and many other scientists, were puzzled by an event that happened about 540 million years ago, known as the Cambrian Explosion. During that period, life as it was known went in overdrive mode, and a world that was mostly comprised by simple life forms, suddenly - in geological scale - became extremely diversified, with most major animal phyla appearing in a span of 25 million years, to then slow down to its normal pace. There are many theories trying to explain it, like the increase in oxygen levels, or the onset of new genetic mechanisms drastically affecting embryo development..."

"Much virtual ink gets spilled each week enumerating the many horrors that could be ours in an AI-filled world, but top researchers in the field are already thinking ahead and making plans to ensure none of that happens.

In particular, the importance of making artificial intelligence "human-aware" has come to be viewed as a top imperative for the field, earning it special status as an official theme of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence taking place this week in New York..."

"Artificial Intelligence has been heralded as a game changer in the drive toward the intelligent enterprise.

While AI and machine learning has been around for more than five decades, it's today's increasingly interconnected world and the continuing explosion of data that is driving an increase of applications powered by AI. AI promises to deliver exciting opportunities to IT as well as the business world, and many believe the reality is not far off..."

"Last year, mobile operators lost $38 billion (£28bn) of their revenue to fraud, according to the Communications Fraud Control Association's 2015 survey. International crime rings are successfully and profitably using highly sophisticated techniques to bulldoze through phone companies' anti-fraud defences. However, emerging big data machine learning applications are beginning to turn the tide. Padraig Stapleton, vice president of engineering at Argyle Data provides insights on how mobile operators are deploying big data and AI to protect themselves and their consumers..."

The researchers developed predictive-vision software that uses machine learning to anticipate what actions should follow a given set of video frames. They fed the program with 600 hours of videos from YouTube and popular TV shows such as Big Bang Theory, The Office and Desperate Housewives to test and see if it can predict whether two people will shake hands, slap five, kiss or hug.

In a second situation, the algorithm can anticipate what could appear in a video after five seconds. It searches for patterns and recognizable objects such as human faces, hands and many others..."

Mike writes, "Our ISV partners are beginning to ask us if we ARE kidding, as we continue to produce a plethora of evidence demonstrating the performance, security, throughput and many other advantages of Oracle's SPARC M7 systems, including the newly announced SPARC S7 systems. Hearing things like 2x more cores, 2x more threads, 4x larger cache per core, 4x more I/O bandwidth... can tend to lose their meaning after awhile.

Does combining software and silicon really amount to that big of a difference!?
And just what do those "x" factors equate to when it comes to real world application of these new SPARC M7/S7 systems?

We'll let you be the judge --
here is a compilation of what evidence we have to date..."

Zeynep blogs, "This week had been a busy one for us. We had several exciting announcements that we would like to inform you about.

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1

To enable organizations and developers to more easily and flexibly create and deploy on premises and cloud applications, we are pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1, the latest release of the world's most popular free and open source, cross-platform virtualization software....

This week we have also announced key software and hardware enhancements to Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, a fully configured Engineered System optimized for running a mix of general-purpose Oracle and non-Oracle workloads. With the refresh of Private Cloud Appliance software release 2.2, IT organizations and providers can deliver enhanced security and flexibility with full tenant isolation at both the server and network levels. PCA customers now have the flexibility to customize and assign servers and networks to different tenant groups based on business need...
"

To enable organizations and developers to more easily and flexibly create and deploy on premises and cloud applications, we are pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1, the latest release of the world's most popular free and open source, cross-platform virtualization software..."

"There is no doubt that the enterprise SSD marketplace is hot right now. But storage users have been subjected to wave after wave of hype for the last couple of decades. Some are wondering if they should trade in all their hard disk drives (HDDs) for solid state drives (SSDs) while others are trying to figure out how to strategically deploy enterprise SSDs to gain maximum bang for their buck.

In such a burgeoning market, it is always good to take stock of the key factors as well as reviewing some hard numbers. Here are the top 10 storage trends in the enterprise SSD marketplace according to leading analyst firms and some of the top players in the industry..."

"The International Electrotechnical Commission hopes the multi-purpose USB Type-C cable will reduce waste and add convenience for customers. That's why the IEC on Wednesday formally adopted the USB Type-C as its new international standard..."

"Get ready for another format war! The next big thing in TV is HDR. But 'HDR' isn't just one simple feature-there are two different, incompatible HDR standards. That means not all HDR videos and games will work with every TV.

HDR stands for 'high dynamic range.' When it comes to TVs, HDR indicates the ability to display a much wider range of colors on a TV display. This includes much brighter whites and much darker blacks. It's an attempt at being more true to life-in the real world, there are a much wider range of colors, deep blacks, and bright whites than we can currently display on a TV..."

"Bitcoin is becoming more popular every day and the cryptocurrency recently has been getting much exposure as mainstream news have been noting its safe haven attributes. Alongside these reports, Bitcoin has also been appearing on the TV screen in an episode of Mr. Robot. Additionally, Sony is premiering a new show called Startup, which also highlights cryptocurrency use..."

"Bitcoiners love to believe their complicated version of money will win hearts and minds. But they might be overlooking one crucial aspect - most people don't even understand traditional finance, let alone the uber complicated digital finance of the future.

Almost two thirds of Americans can't calculate interest payments. Yet, Bitcoiners believe their complicated digital currency, which incorporates encryption and deflation, will catch on and 'revolutionize' finance...."

Yell made the case that in times of market duress, including a period of economic collapse, Bitcoin acts like digital gold. DailyFx is the research website of Forex Capital Markets (FXCM), an online Foreign exchange market broker..."

"Bitcoin halving has come and gone; what's left is a smaller reward for mining bitcoins and the promise of a stronger cryptocurrency. We talked to Henry Brade, the CEO of Prasos Oy, a Finnish Bitcoin startup founded in 2012, about the event, the current state of Bitcoin and what's next for all the people directly involved in this matter..."

"Venafi extends its security platform to help security teams support DevOps in using secure TLS keys and certificates quickly and easily..."

'DevOps is like a black hole to security teams because they have no idea what DevOps is doing and have no way of ensuring security policy is enforced,' Kevin Bocek, vice-president of threat intelligence and security strategy at Venafi, told Computer Weekly.

"The key goal of DevOps is to bring development and operations together, bound by a common set of practices. For this to become reality, developers need to think more like the operations team - focusing on stability and reliability - while operators need to think more like developers-focusing on agility and speed. But how widely can this be applied?..."

The dearth of experienced DevOps practitioners in the IT jobs market is preventing some enterprises from taking their agile ambitions to the next level, according to infrastructure automation supplier Chef..."

"When I joined CBRE back in 2012, there was a need to strengthen our project methodology standards. So one of the first initiatives for IT was to improve our agile project methodology process and roll it out globally for our entire IT team. We are now beginning to see the benefits of that effort. We're delivering projects to the business on time, on budget and consistently because of our enhanced methodology.

That was step one. This year, we're working to make DevOps part of that standard methodology..."

Yves writes, "Over the last year, the Ceph world drew me in. Partly because of my taste for distributed systems, but also because I think Ceph represents a great opportunity for MySQL specifically and databases in general. The shift from local storage to distributed storage is similar to the shift from bare disks host configuration to LVM-managed disks configuration.

Most of the work I've done with Ceph was in collaboration with folks from RedHat (mainly Brent Compton and Kyle Bader). This work resulted in a number of talks presented at the Percona Live conference in April and the RedHat Summit San Francisco at the end of June. I could write a lot about using Ceph with databases, and I hope this post is the first in a long series on Ceph. Before I starting with use cases, setup configurations and performance benchmarks, I think I should quickly review the architecture and principles behind Ceph..."

Ramona blogs, "Join us Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT for a quick online overview and learn how Oracle Cloud makes it fast and simple to migrate your applications and workloads - including both Java and Windows based apps - to the cloud. Learn how to rapidly provision dev and test environments, and speed up your development cycles with our intuitive, built-in tools and capabilities e.g. mobile and BI.

Gwen writes, "Earlier this year, International Data Corporation (IDC) released a report entitled Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide that gave a snapshot of where global cloud market currently stands - and where it's headed. The facts? The worldwide cloud market will grow at six times the rate of overall IT spending, doubling in size by 2019 to an estimated US$141 billion..."

"After several years of steady cloud adoption in the enterprise, an interesting trend has emerged: More companies are retaining their existing, on-premise IT infrastructures while also embracing the latest cloud technologies. In fact, IDC predicts markets for such hybrid cloud environments will grow from the over $25 billion global market we saw in 2014 to a whopping $84 billion global market by 2019..."

"At its Worldwide Partner Conference on July 11, Microsoft announced a partnership with GE under which the industrial giant will integrate its Predix Internet of things (IoT) platform with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform as a service. The move will help large enterprises deploy industrial applications that leverage the IoT on Microsoft's cloud infrastructure. It's a big win for Microsoft as it seeks to demonstrate that it can keep pace with Amazon Web Services and IBM as one of the top cloud services providers..."

Deploying software isn't easy, and it's more complicated in the age of service-oriented architectures, web services, microservices and the cloud. Virtualization presents new challenges, with applications and servers in new roles. Basic software operations tools are transforming into automation and orchestration tools, and open source software leads the way -- especially Chef and Puppet..."

"Digital transformation is the buzz phrase du jour, but the reality is that many CIOs struggle to understand what it actually takes to drive new customer-facing opportunities. They'd do well to look to Lidia Fonseca, the CIO and executive sponsor of the business transformation efforts underway at Quest Diagnostics - the lab testing and (emerging) analytics powerhouse..."

"What are you reading this summer? We polled our Enterprisers and IT executives to see which books had the most impact on them. They are listed here as part of our Enterprisers Project Summer Book Giveaway. Check out the list below, and then enter for a chance to win all the books. The instructions are simple, and the chances are high, so give it a go!..."

"If making a big buy is at all unusual for your team, you're at a disadvantage to vendor salespeople who do nothing else. Here are some danger signs to look out for...

Few IT leaders recognize when a salesperson is exaggerating product capabilities (or omitting limitations). In practicing their craft, salespeople hone their pitches to a gleaming sharpness. They can demonstrate how their product meets a variety of needs, and they can counter virtually any objection or concern the IT team might raise..."

"While the IT service management community has stepped up its collection of performance data from its customers, it's been slow to take the next step of applying data-driven automation. A new survey suggests adoption will happen in a big way within the next two years. (Includes infographic.)..."

"Industries such as manufacturing, food service and retail will see a massive wave of robotic disruption over the next several years...

It's certainly no news bulletin that digital technologies are disrupting the business world. Machines, including robots, handle a growing array of tasks. AP now uses robot journalists to write basic stories about earnings and sports results, manufacturers use robots to assemble products, and a few hotels now use these devices to deliver meals and other items to rooms..."

"Despite uncertainty of when their organizations will be ready for digital business, most IT pros say they will definitely play a part in the transformation when it does happen, according to a recent Gartner report...

Moving to compete in an age of the digital enterprise has been at the top of mind for many organizations, even if it hasn't made the top of their priority lists. Yet. But a new report from Gartner found that 41% of IT professionals surveyed said they believe that their own organizations will be ready for digital business within the next two years. But the majority of respondents, 59%, said their companies are unprepared to meet the digital age within the same time frame..."

"Information security assessments can be effective for identifying and fixing issues in your enterprise's policies. Expert Kevin Beaver explains the key components of the process...

What is the best way to measure information security risk? The best way is to jump right in and look for specific vulnerabilities in your systems and applications; this is not unlike measuring the health of human beings through magnetic resonance imaging, blood analysis and the like. Some people call these exercises IT security audits. Some call them penetration tests..."

"You've sold the C-suite on a new project. Only now things aren't going according to plan and the data is telling you it may be time to either pivot the project or abort it all together. How do you decide whether to pull the plug or try a different approach? And perhaps the biggest challenge of all how do you have that conversation with the C-suite? ..."

Now that NATO has recognized that cyberspace is as much a battleground as land, sea, and air, what does that mean for enterprise IT defense? Do you, as IT professionals, have to get involved in the battles between nations? You don't have a choice...

In this week's Monday Opener, our UK editor-in-chief, Steve Ranger, asked a number of compelling questions about the Internet as battlespace. He pointed out that NATO heads of state have officially designated cyberspace as a domain for military operations with the same level of importance as air, sea, and land. This is big..."

"A new federal initiative seeks to spark 5G mobile services and the internet of things...

The U.S. National Science Foundation will spend more than US$400 million over the next seven years to fund next-generation wireless research in an effort to bring super-fast mobile service to the country..."

"Enterprise IT has evolved significantly over the last decade. Today, IT teams are not only responsible for the availability and performance of their network but also the security of it. Key drivers of IT complexity have been the adoption of cloud based applications and the emergence of BYOD to work.

As we look forward, the IoT movement is going transform the way IT teams manage their networks. Cisco predicts that the global IoT market will reach $14.4 trillion by 2022 and cloud applications will account for 90% of worldwide mobile data traffic by 2019..."

"The answer to this question about Wi-Fi is surprisingly complicated...

Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous over the past decade and a half that we talk about it - and complain about it - like it's part of the weather. Be honest, average user - the first thing you think when your connection starts acting up is 'damn it, what's wrong with the Wi-Fi now?'

But the degree to which Wi-Fi is likely to be the limiting factor for any given connection is shrinking. Wi-Fi has evolved quickly over the past few years, so much so that it can seem like wireless is outstripping wired networks in terms of raw capability..."

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to open nearly 11 gigahertz of high-band spectrum to new wireless uses, hailing it as a 'monumental step' that will greatly increase network capacity for 5G and the Internet of Things.

The FCC on Thursday adopted new rules for spectrum above 24 GHz, in a vote that Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler described as one of the most important decisions commissioners will make this year..."

"A year after the depletion of the IPv4 address space, ARIN chief John Curran talks about IPv6 benefits, the IPv6 NAT conundrum and the importance of offering IPv6 connectivity.

With the pool of available IPv4 addresses for the North American market completely depleted as of September 2015, the pressure is mounting for enterprises to explore IPv6 connectivity, at least for their internet-facing services.

John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), based in Chantilly, Va., has been working since 1993 to design and deploy the new version of Internet Protocol, IPv6..."

"The Wi-Fi Alliance, a global nonprofit association of companies that determine the interoperability of Wi-Fi technology, recently certified the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard. The new standard brings a host of updates that could eventually affect the daily connectivity of consumers and businesses alike

Here are six performance changes that we will see with 802.11ac Wave 2..."

"The Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as an unprecedented opportunity for many players in the communications, information technology, and (consumer) electronics industries. Although definitions of 'IoT', application scopes and growth forecasts strongly diverge - some analysts estimate the number of connected devices by 2020 around 20 billion connected devices, while the most bullish forecasts exceed 100 billion things - all sources agree that the IoT is going to be 'huge.' Estimates about the economic impact of the IoT show spectacular numbers too. While IDC is talking about $1.7 Trillion IoT spending in 2020, McKinsey believes that the market for IoT could reach $11.1 trillion by 2025..."

"Traditionally, the roles of digital and physical security in enterprises have been comfortably siloed. Physical security systems, including analog CCTV video surveillance and access control, were the responsibility of the facilities management and security teams. IT was responsible for securing the network and protecting against cyber attacks..."

"The quality of analytics depends upon how "clean" or authentic the data is and how quickly one can obtain the data that algorithms operate on. We have already seen instances where flu epidemics were misjudged because of incomplete data and/or data assumptions, or where market opportunities were missed because relevant market facts were overlooked in the data.

For most companies, it's virtually impossible to incorporate all data that might be relevant for the topic they plan to analyze. As organizations add the Internet of Things (IoT) into their analytics, the plot thickens because of a silent threat that few analytics managers think about: the fundamental flaws in embedded software development..."

"Although it may seem like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are all the rage for dashboard infotainment systems, open-source Linux proponents haven't conceded the battle yet. The Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) project announced the release of its Unified Code Base 2.0, implementing new in-vehicle entertainment support desired by automakers and drivers.

The new code base adds support for audio routing, rear-seat entertainment systems and apps. It follows the version 1.0 release at CES earlier this year..."

.. ZFS was originally designed at Sun Microsystem. It is an advanced file system and logical volume manager. It works on Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux and many other operating systems. The features of ZFS include protection against data corruption, compression, volume management, snapshots, data integrity, Software RAID, cache and much more.

"You could keep worrying about being forced to upgrade to Windows 10, or you could try the best of all Linux desktops: Mint 18...

I've been using Linux desktops since the leading desktop front-end was Bash. Things have changed in those 25 years. Today, the best Linux desktop is the latest version of Linux Mint: Linux Mint 18 Sarah with the Cinnamon 3.0 interface..."

"With so many doing so much self-directed research on search engines and social media to help address problems and identify solutions, in many cases as much of 70% of the decision-making process is now over before potential clients are ready for a conversation with a data center's executive- or sales team.

Today's data centers face a very different buyer's journey where the traditional marketing and sales playbooks have been severely disrupted..."

I am a big fan of movies - old black and white ones, new ones with special effects, and most types in between. I especially like musicals.

One of my favorite musical films is 'West Side Story,' released in 1961. It is a retelling of Shakespeare's tragic romance Romeo and Juliet. What does a Broadway musical and its subsequent film version have to do with a successful enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) system?..."

"New data center metrics go beyond power usage effectiveness to determine the overall efficiency of infrastructure, focusing on more than energy and cooling...

Despite the benefits of the power usage effectiveness metric, it's not always sufficient to fully optimize data center efficiency. IT teams need more detailed data center metrics that encompass both the power and cooling infrastructure, as well as the computing systems, to truly optimize the data center..."

"While most of the decision makers would likely prefer to hear a simple yes or no when asking if they should pay, nothing in security is simple. By and large, the position of many leaders in the industry is that the ideal situation is not to pay.

Security experts across the industry would like to see all enterprises, large and small, be prepared for a hit so that they can recover their data without paying a ransomware fee. The question of whether to pay the ransomware fee is tricky, though, as sometimes organizations are left with no other options..."

"As Baby Boomers increasingly exit the workforce and Millennials move in to take their places, HR professionals must assess and mitigate the cybersecurity risks posed by new workers who grew up in the digital age, according to a new study by Software Advice, headquartered in Austin, Texas..."

"Millennials bring a wealth of technology experience with them when they join an organization," said Daren Glenister, field chief technology officer at Intralinks, a secure collaboration tech provider in Houston. In fact, "many bring their personal devices and consumer-grade software solutions with them into the office."

"If you plan on hiring new grads this summer, you'll want to make sure you get them up to speed on the importance of corporate security as soon as possible -- because they aren't as savvy as they think...

Millennials bring a lot to the workplace, whether they're pushing the boundaries of company culture or forcing companies to modernize. But there are a few risks associated with hiring recent grads -- especially if it's their first job in the industry -- and one of those risks is data security..."

In 2015, Black Hat began compiling responses for a survey with the intent to gauge the attitude and plans of some of the most experienced and highly trained cybersecurity individuals - attendees of the Black Hat conference. In just a year, the event has recorded significant shifts towards an increased strain on the industry..."

"You've heard the advice: Don't download or run software you're unsure of. Here's a quick review of the warning signs to stop you from taking unnecessary risks...

Most people's computers get exploited in only a handful of ways. Among the most popular methods is tricking people into downloading and running Trojans. Often, unsuspecting users get socially engineered into running a malicious file or app by following a link in email or visiting a website.

It can be tough to spot the fake stuff, so here's what you should watch for..."

"You're already breached. Here's how to track down attackers on your network before they wreak havoc ...

It's time to face facts: Attackers are stealthy enough to evade your monitoring systems. If you're sitting back waiting for alarms to go off, there's a good chance you're already hosed.

Despite spending more than $75 billion on security products and services, enterprises are frequently compromised, highly sensitive data is stolen, and the fallout can be devastating. Worse, enterprises don't discover they've been breached for weeks to months after initial compromise, taking between 120 to 200 days on average to even detect an attack. That's a six-month head start on reconnaissance and exploitation -- more time on your network than most of your recent hires..."

Many of my colleagues claim that the only true way to do scale-out storage is by using a shared-nothing model to spreading your data across a pool of standard x86 servers. But other scale-out options exist. Rather than use a single commodity server as their building block, shared media systems use that old standby, the dual-controller storage system, as their base unit..."

Recently, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a Cyber Grand Challenge, which will have seven teams, who will be competing in a $3.75 million-prize-pool hacking contest that concludes in Las Vegas this August. The rewards comes in the form of a US $2 million prize for first place, $1 million for second place, and $750,000 for third place. The goal of the tournament is to develop Skynet.

Skynet is a fictional conscious, gestalt, artificial general intelligence system that features centrally in the Terminator franchise and serves as the franchise's main antagonist.

Musk tweeted a not-so-veiled warning on Thursday morning. This is not the first time he has left on a record as being provoked of an antagonistic supercomputer..."

"You're going to be laid off. There's a damn good chance of that happening. Are you prepared to deal with it?

In my daily perusing of news and entertainment, I stumbled across this article about what one particular woman wished she knew before being laid off. While it's a relatively interesting piece about one woman's experience with being let go after a long tenure, I couldn't help but feel like it lacked any true call to action for people that experience this. Having been a victim of this numerous times, it sparked my desire to crawl out of my blogging cave with the motivation to write a helpful piece so you can avoid the mistakes I made..."

"As a small business owner, one of your key responsibilities is to identify top performers who will fit your business culture and contribute to the success of your business. The interview is an important step in the process and the questions you ask are critical to the success of the interview. So, some common questions you may have followed along with some responses are here:..."

"Bestselling author and Wharton professor Adam Grant has spent years researching and interviewing originals. There's the seasoned chief executive who cusses freely and challenges candidates to apply for jobs by tweeting at her. Or the author who tackles weighty topics like artificial intelligence and virtual reality with stick figure illustrations. And the former spy who founded an airline and is betting on Utah as the next big tech hub. In Originals, Grant shows how to identify, foster, and nurture nonconformists - here he expounds on how to recognize and recruit them in a startup setting..."

"The rapid proliferation of virtualisation in recent years makes it appear as if it's a very recent technology - but it's been around a lot longer than you think

The rapid proliferation of virtualisation in recent years, growing from 40% of server workloads in 2012 to nearly 80% in 2016, makes it appear as if it's a very recent technology. But it's not quite the overnight success it appears..."

"VirtualBox 5.1 is a massive release that improves numerous parts of the software, promising to be a worthy update over any previous ones. It is the best and most advanced release so far, increasing the Linux integration, enhancing the multimedia support, and adding support for new technologies..."

"To enable organizations and developers to more easily and flexibly create and deploy on premises and cloud applications, we are pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1, the latest release of the world's most popular free and open source, cross-platform virtualization software," said Oracle.

"By now, you've probably heard of Docker containers. But what about the rest of the container ecosystem? Which other companies are involved in containers and microservices, and what types of partnership opportunities exist surrounding containers? Keep reading for insight..."

"Open source graph databases, first used by social networks like Facebook and Twitter, are seeing mainstream adoption.

Graph databases, which use graph structures for semantic queries, came into prominence through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But they're used for far more now than just linking connections between friends and relatives..."

"Integrating backup software, cloud services support, deduplication, and virtualization into a single hardware appliance remains a moving target. Even as backup appliance providers merge these technologies onto their respective appliances, the methodologies they employ to do so can vary significantly between them. This becomes very apparent when one looks at growing number of backup appliances from the providers in the market today and the various ways that they offer these features..."

"For an organization considering backing up to the public cloud for the first time, the list of providers and offerings can seem endless. Brien Posey outlines key considerations.

Choosing an online cloud backup provider can be a challenging process. There are numerous vendors to choose from, and each one offers a variety of capabilities at different price points. The key is to focus on how well a vendor's products mesh with your organization's requirements.

In the case of backup storage, performance and the costs associated with storing your data are universal concerns, but they are not the only criteria. Additional important areas of consideration when contemplating online cloud backup include the following:.."

"Protecting and accessing company data is an issue every modern business, large or small, needs to prioritize. According to 24/7 Wall Street, there have been 16% more data breaches in 2016 than during the same period in 2015, and this upward trend is not new. With data breaches on the rise each year, preserving irreplaceable data should be a priority for your company from day one. Almost everyone knows that it's essential to have security measures in place for protecting sensitive data. However, many organizations fail to back up their information and protect those backups with the same level of security as the original data..."

"When we look at ways businesses embark on marketing campaigns, we can see that quantity is regarded as a good thing.

Lots of traffic - good. Viral posts are the Holy Grail: they generate thousands of page views every hour. Likes and shares: the more the merrier.

And from all of that traffic, and social interest, the business hopes for a high quantity of leads and conversions.

But when it comes to data, quantity in itself cannot drive profit and success. Simply having a lot of data does not help. In fact, it can muddy the waters and make decision-making more difficult, increasing cost and reducing efficiency.

So: quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive, but there is a relationship between them..."

"We already know that Big Data is a big deal, and it's here to stay. In fact, 65% of companies fear that they risk becoming irrelevant or uncompetitive if they don't embrace it. But despite the hype surrounding Big Data, companies struggle to make use of the data they collate. Read on to find out what the problems are with big data implementation..."

"As cities across the country open their data, the U.S. City Open Data Census is keeping tabs on municipal efforts by collecting information on the current state of access to a selected group of datasets. The crowdsourced project aims to be a benchmarking tool that communities can use to ignite conversations about open government data.

The Sunlight Foundation, which is helping with the initiative, reports that although many cities have made progress with open data portals and digitizing archives, a few consistently lead the pack..."

"As organizations look to stay competitive by expanding their use of real-time analytics, implementation becomes a challenge. Finding options to effectively serve your company over the long term is often more difficult than it appears. We've identified 12 common obstacles you'll want to avoid as your company pursues real-time analytics..."

"BI has always topped of the list of enterprise priorities -- and execs are always the least satisfied with BI initiatives. Why should big data be any different?

Another day, another CEO survey. This one, from KPMG, finds that CEOs don't trust their analytics, the way their team is using or implementing them, or even the data used to make decisions in the first place. In fact, only 31 percent of respondents see their organizations as leaders in the use of data and analytics.

"I was helping a manager with the company's analytics; the problem was framed as 'falling engagement in front-line staff.' Now that is a good start because at this organization the link between the measure of employee engagement and customer satisfaction is well established, making this a business problem, not just an HR one. Furthermore it's, at least potentially, an important problem. A problem worth devoting resources to addressing.

So what do we do next? Multiple regression? Create a data warehouse? ..."

Android has actually had a robust voice command system in place for ages -- and the number of things it can do for you is expanding all the time.

In fact, Google may be preparing to unveil a newly rebranded and even more conversational version of its virtual assistant later this year, but you don't have to wait to start making the most of your mobile device's listening smarts..."

"Maximizing productivity has become a priority across private and public sectors -- and the military is no exception. As part of the push for increased productivity, military standards are evolving to reflect modern computing infrastructures, technological advances and higher standards for communication. Part of this shift includes rapid adoption of mobile technology to create seamless workflows between military administration and field deployment..."

"Like smartphones did years ago, smartwatches could create loss of sensitive workplace and personal data

As smartwatches and other wearables gain popularity, experts are warning of potential data security risks in workplaces.

Some employees have begun connecting their personal smartwatches with corporate Wi-Fi networks, which could mimic the problems caused when personal smartphones started showing up at work several years ago. That earlier bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend fostered an explosion of software products from various vendors for managing devices securely, alongside laptops and desktops..."

"Mobile devices have been a staple of the federal workplace for years, going back to the days when everyone relied on BlackBerries to bang out email when away from the office.

The smartphone world looks quite different today. Although a few diehards still refuse to surrender their BlackBerries, iPhone and Android devices dominate the landscape. And increasingly, employees would rather use their own devices at work rather than carry a personal and a work phone..."

"Salesforce.com is stepping up its efforts to woo security-conscious businesses by adding 'bring your own key' encryption to its Salesforce Shield cloud services.

Introduced a year ago, Shield offers encryption, auditing and event-monitoring functions to help companies build cloud apps that meet compliance or governance requirements. Encryption is based on keys generated by Salesforce using a combination of an organization-specific 'tenant secret' and a Salesforce-maintained master one. Originally, secrets and keys in Shield were generated and managed through Salesforce's built-in key-management infrastructure, accessed through a point-and-click interface..."

"A Ponemon survey reports that encryption use by companies jumped 7 percent to 41 percent, the largest increase in the 11-year history of the report.

For a long time, encryption was like drinking prune juice or taking castor oil for employees in an enterprise - they only used it when they absolutely had to.

No so anymore. Encryption for data storage and email security is now almost mainstream within enterprises, largely because: a) internal and cyber-security issues are at an all-time high; and b) security companies have been working hard to make encryption and key management easier to use..."

This report highlights that as LTO-7 technology continues to be adopted by new industries and replaces older LTO technology and that the total amount of data being shipped continues to increase. In 1Q16, 24EB of data have been shipped worldwide to companies..."

"This installment of Open source Java projects introduces Java developers to Docker Swarm. You'll learn why so many enterprise shops have adopted container-managed development via Docker, and why clustering is an important technique for working with Docker containers. You'll also find out how two popular Docker clustering technologies--Amazon ECS and Docker Swarm--compare, and get a quick guide to choosing the right solution for your shop or project. The introduction concludes with a hands-on demonstration of using Docker Swarm to develop and manage a two-node enterprise cluster..."

"Today the Open MPI Team announced the release of Open MPI version 2.0.0, a major new release series containing many new features and bug fixes..."

"Increasing the major release number to '2' is indicative the magnitude of the changes in this release: v2.0.0 is effectively a new generation of Open MPI compared to the v1.10 series. Many of the changes are visible to users, but equally importantly, there are many changes 'under the hood' that add stability and performance improvements to the inner workings of Open MPI..."

Geertjan blogs, "JSX is a XML-like syntax extension to ECMAScript without any defined semantics. Many more details about it can be found here.

JSX is popular in the React community which "recommend[s] using JSX because it is a concise and familiar syntax for defining tree structures with attributes. It's more familiar for casual developers such as designers." Many more details about that can be found here.

Many NetBeans IDE users have been asking for JSX support in NetBeans IDE, since they are using React:..."

Nexenta announced that Field Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Michael Letschin, will speak at the Data Storage Innovation Conference on June 13-15 in San Mateo, Calif.

Michael will discuss how software-defined storage (SDS) means different things to different people. With solutions ranging from do-it-yourself to full-fledged, scale up and scale out architectures, the landscape can seem blurry and confusing. Michael will delve into what all these terms mean by mapping each style of SDS with a corresponding environment. These solutions include the use of virtual server based solutions, containers, bare metal installs and even hyper-converged. Regardless of vertical or company size, from branch offices through the largest enterprise, the right software-defined storage strategy can put you back in control and help you gain unmatched levels of flexibility, scalability, performance, and cost efficiency.

Nexenta announced Northern Arizona University (NAU) has deployed NexentaStor to handle the extensive datasets involved in research conducted at the university.

NAU faculty and graduate students are renowned for their research in astronomy, bioinformatics, computational chemistry, cropland mapping, human microbiome analysis and microbial genomics - all generating big data items such as genome maps, Landsat images and complex chemistry data sets. As these data sets grew over the years, they exceeded the capacity and compute power of NAU's individual research labs, so the High-Performance Computing (HPC) (link is external) team led by Research Administrator, Christopher Coffey, centralized compute and storage to better assist researchers with their work.

Veritas Technologies, the leader in information management, today announces the next-generation of its NetBackup 5200-series Integrated Appliances with data visibility. Together NetBackup 5240 and Information Map are the first solution to integrate data protection and data visibility map, addressing enterprise challenges managing unclassified, dark data. NetBackup 5240 is the latest in the popular family of Veritas appliances seeing unprecedented growth in the last six years.

Cisco announced new services and cloud-based security solutions built with Cisco's threat-centric security architecture. With best of breed security solutions uniquely architected to be integrated, automated and simple to use, the Cisco security portfolio provides companies with a more effective approach for securing their digital business models. From the network to the endpoint to the cloud, Cisco's architectural approach detects more threats and helps customers on average reduce their time to detection to less than 17 hours - much faster than the industry standard of 100 days...

Company also improves threat visibility and enforcement capabilities with new security technology embedded into the network

Cisco announced it will help engineers, developers, partners and customers embrace a monumental change in how networks are built and managed - preparing the industry for the transition to digital-ready networks. Cisco is also building on the intersection between security and networking with new technologies designed to simplify branch office security and make it more effective...

SecureWorks announced an integration which combines the high-fidelity portions of its proprietary Attacker Database with the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform as part of the SecureWorks managed Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall Service. This solution is designed to enhance security for organizations worldwide with additional threat intelligence.

The SecureWorks Attacker Database contains a list of domain names and IP addresses used to conduct malicious activity. The threat intelligence data feed provided by the Attacker Database can be applied to clients' managed Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall using its external dynamic list functionality. This integration will enable Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall devices to be configured to prevent cyberattacks by proactively blocking traffic to known malicious domain names and IP addresses, with blocklists being automatically updated using the Attacker Database threat intelligence feed.

GE and Microsoft Corp. announced a partnership that will make GE's Predix platform for the Industrial Internet available on the Microsoft Azure cloud for industrial businesses. The move marks the first step in a broad strategic collaboration between the two companies, which will allow customers around the world to capture intelligence from their industrial assets and take advantage of Microsoft's enterprise cloud applications.

According to Gartner, 6.4 billion connected things are expected to be in use worldwide this year, and that number is predicted to climb to more than 20 billion by 2020, presenting a significant opportunity for companies to drive their own digital transformation...

Microsoft Corp. announced the Microsoft Professional Degree (MPD) program, the first program of its kind to offer employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career. MPD is a Microsoft-led initiative that provides professionals with real-world knowledge and hands-on experience to grow their skills in critical fields. The initial MPD offering is in data science, with all courseware available on edX.org, the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard University and MIT.

Symantec Corp. announced that Michael Fey will join Symantec as President and Chief Operating Officer upon closing of the previously announced acquisition of Blue Coat, Inc. He will report to Greg Clark, Symantec CEO-designate.

'Mike, like Greg, has a proven ability to accelerate turnarounds and ignite significant revenue growth inside organizations,' said Dan Schulman, Chairman of the Symantec Board of Directors. 'His initial focus will be on merging the go-to-market functions of the combined companies to take advantage of the tremendous cross-sell and upsell opportunity formed by the powerful combination of these two market leaders.'

IBM announced that International Data Corporation (IDC) has identified the IBM Cloud as the second leading global IaaS provider according to its Worldwide Semi-Annual Public Cloud Services Tracker, 2H 2015. The tracker looked at both individual cloud service providers and overall market revenue while assessing the complete gamut of Infrastructure as a Service capabilities including provisioning servers (virtual and bare metal), storage and networking options.

In its methodology, IDC says that, 'cloud services are about what the customer buys, not how the service provider delivers it.' The firm goes on to say that its definition of cloud services focuses on what the customer sees and experiences versus how things get delivered. Those choices are important but they don't belong in the definition of an offering category like "cloud services." This takes us out of the religious wars over what the best implementation architectures and technologies are.

IBM and Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. company announced they will move the engine manufacturer's business, engineering and manufacturing enterprise systems to a fully managed and supported environment on the IBM Cloud infrastructure.

Due to the market success of its broad portfolio of engines, Pratt & Whitney is expected to more than double production by 2020. Having made the investments in its facilities, suppliers, technology and people, Pratt & Whitney is well-positioned to support the increase in production. Those expanded facilities and an enhanced supply chain will result in significant data growth and the need to securely store, quickly access and take action with that new data.

AT&T and IBM are working together to help businesses accelerate their Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives. The two companies will combine their unique strengths in cognitive computing and global connectivity to create open standards-based tools on the IBM Cloud to enable developers to more quickly build and implement a wide variety of IoT solutions.

Open standards-based tools allow developers to improve their skills and avoid the churn of learning new tools, which helps protect the investments businesses have made in IoT solution development. As demand for IoT solutions grows, so does the demand for skilled IoT developers. According to the VisionMobile 2016 Internet of Things Megatrends report, nearly 10 million developers will be active in IoT by 2020, doubling the estimated 5 million today. As businesses discover the need to more efficiently develop and bring IoT solutions to market, they must invest in developers to stay competitive.

IBM announced plans to establish the first IBM Center for Blockchain Innovation in Singapore. In the first collaboration of its kind with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), IBM Researchers will work with government, industries and academia to develop applications and solutions which are based on enterprise blockchain, cyber-security, and cognitive computing technologies. In addition to drawing from the expertise in the Singaporean talent pool and that of the IBM Research network, the Center will also engage with small- and medium-sized enterprises to create new applications and grow new markets in finance and trade.

IBM announced that Dixons Carphone Group, Europe's largest telecommunications retail and services company, is migrating to the IBM Cloud from IBM datacenters in the United Kingdom to integrate two distinct infrastructures and enable easy scaling to better manage the peaks and valleys of seasonal shopping trends.

Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse merged in 2014 presenting an opportunity to consolidate the infrastructures leveraging cloud solutions for flexibility, performance and cost savings. After assessing the long-term values and scalability of multiple cloud providers, the company turned to IBM Cloud for a smooth transition to a hybrid cloud infrastructure.

IBM announced a cloud service for organizations requiring a secure environment for blockchain networks. Ideal for organizations in regulated industries, this environment allows clients to test and run blockchain projects that handle private data.

IBM's secure blockchain cloud environment, underpinned by IBM LinuxONE, the industry's most secure Linux-only server, is ideal for organizations such as Everledger, a company that tracks and protects diamonds and other valuables via the blockchain.

Fujitsu Limited and Cloud Lending Solutions announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreeing to a strategic partnership to provide banks and other financial services organizations around the world the cloud-based, end-to-end lending and leasing platform - a fintech solution - developed by Cloud Lending Solutions.

The partners will deliver leading-edge fintech solutions to existing Salesforce.com enterprise customers and businesses looking to expand their product portfolio or geographic footprint. The two companies will also engage in go-to-market collaboration to support global customers, initially starting with the Japanese and ASEAN markets. Additionally, the two companies will strengthen their strategic partnership in the United States by collaborating with Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc.

Fujitsu, a leading global information and communication technology company, and ImageWare Systems, Inc. (OTCQB: IWSY), a leader in mobile and cloud-based, multi-modal biometric identity management solutions, announced that an upgraded version of the Biometric-as-a-Service solution is now available on FUJITSU Cloud Service S5 (S5). The update leverages the latest version of FUJITSU Software Enterprise Service Catalog Manager, which provides rapid Software-as-a-Service deployment of partner offerings from anywhere in the world. The converged solution also incorporates proprietary GoVerifyID, a cloud-based biometric identity management suite.

"As VMware Virtual SAN moves to the forefront of the software-defined storage and hyper-converged markets, users are advised to weigh its pros and cons before implementation.

Virtualization has enabled businesses to manage server resources more easily. Recently, corporations have been adding such features to their storage systems. VMware VSAN 6.2 has emerged as a leader in this space and is also gaining traction as a hyper-converged offering, but the product does present customers with a few challenges.

Interest in software-defined storage (SDS) is growing for a variety of reasons, starting with rising storage volumes. The digital universe is expected to double in size every two years between now and 2020, when it reaches 44 zettabytes of information, according to IDC..."

The Friday Five is a weekly Red Hat blog post with 5 of the week's top news items and ideas from or about Red Hat and the technology industry. Consider it your weekly digest of things that caught our eye.

"The term the internet of things (IoT) was coined as early as 1999, but as a technology trend, IoT really started to gain steam starting in 2008, when the number of devices connected to the internet exceeded the number of people. Arguably accelerated by the launch of the iPhone, by 2010 the number of connected devices had reached 12.5 billion,* a number driven in large part by the explosive growth in smartphones and tablet PCs. Predictions are there will be anywhere between 28 billion to more than 50 billion connected devices by 2020 by 2020. Even on the low end, the numbers are impressive, to say the least..."

EMC announced that Molina Healthcare (NYSE: MOH), a FORTUNE 500, multi-state health care organization, is updating its data center with VCE Vblock System 740s converged infrastructure and the added power of all-flash. This new architecture will improve several critical areas including service deployment and the infrastructure that supports its high-volume call center. Over the past five years, Molina has experienced rapid growth, moving onto the Fortune 500 list to its current number 201 spot. With all-flash Vblock Systems it gains critical agility and speed for the IT organization to quickly respond to increasing business demands as the company prepares for its next phase of growth. The simplified converged infrastructure environment also allows Molina to invest in business initiatives versus keeping the lights on.

"Hewlett Packard Enterprise is undertaking a strategy to move more of its security products through partners, telling CRN that it is starting to open its data security portfolio to the channel, lines that had previously only been sold direct.

"As a company, HPE is heavily focused on security and bringing security to the market for the customer base. With that in mind, we have taken on the role of wanting to bring our data security solutions, which have been traditionally sold direct, into the channel," said Sheryl Wharff, global product marketing for HPE Data Security.

Comcast and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) ConnectHome initiative took an historic step to close the digital divide in America. Now, public housing and HUD-assisted residents living in Comcast's service area are eligible to apply for Internet Essentials, the company's acclaimed, high-speed internet adoption program for low-income families. Including homes covered by Comcast's pilot public housing expansion announced in March, an estimated total of up to 2 million HUD-assisted homes, including Public Housing, Housing Choice Voucher, and Multifamily programs, will now have access to low-cost internet service.

Windstream, a leading provider of advanced network communications, today announced that it has won its fourth consecutive Frost & Sullivan North America "Growth Excellence Leadership Award." Windstream received this honor in recognition of its VoIP access and SIP Trunking services, which are foundational elements of Windstream's suite of services for enterprise business customers. Criteria for the award included customer experience, growth strategy and diversification, portfolio excellence, and brand strength.